


Delta

by joban_disaster



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alpha Bucky Barnes, Alpha Peggy Carter, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Amnesiac Bucky Barnes, Amnesiac Steve Rogers, Attempted Sexual Assault, Bucky Barnes Has PTSD, Canon Divergence - Captain America: The First Avenger, Canon Divergence - Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Canon-Typical Violence, Catholic Steve Rogers, Established Relationship, HYDRA found them first, Implied/Referenced Torture, Jewish Bucky Barnes, M/M, Multi, Omega Steve Rogers, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Protective Bucky Barnes, Protective Steve Rogers, Steve Rogers Has PTSD, Steve Rogers as the Winter Soldier, Tony Stark Is a Good Bro, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-16
Updated: 2018-11-04
Packaged: 2019-06-11 12:56:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 34
Words: 17,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15315975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/joban_disaster/pseuds/joban_disaster
Summary: They’re not a love story— they’re a war story. Somehow, everyone seems to forget that.





	1. gather me up, dear, fold me to your heart

**Author's Note:**

> General content warnings: WWII- and canon-typical (CA:TFA, CA:TWS) violence; Holocaust historical context; graphic sensuality; implied miscarriage; implied torture; amputation; coerced impregnation; attempted sexual assault; forced sedation; amnesia.
> 
> Content warnings will also be specified per chapter.

“We’re gonna be forever,” Bucky tells Steve when Bucky’s newly eleven and Steve’s ten and tiny and bleeding from his rosebud mouth, “we’re gonna be _eternal._ ”

 

* * *

 

Bucky comes faithfully over every Sunday to help Sarah with household work after Mass and this Sunday is no different, arriving with a summer sunburn and a load of fresh, warm laundry. He bangs into the apartment with a laugh. “Hey, Mrs. Rogers. Present for you from my ma.”

Sarah’s eyes light up and she stands to take the basket from Bucky, moving it to the table where she sets about sorting. “Tell Winifred she’s an absolute _godsend_ , thank you, James.”

(Sarah’s been so busy with double shifts at the hospital lately that Winifred Barnes throws up her well-worn hands and demands Sarah let her take over “at least some of the household work, _genug!_ I won’t have you wasting your time doing chores I can make the children do instead—  _Gott nor veist,_  I have enough of them, and they _deserve_ it, too, the brats.” With four children under twelve all underfoot at home, Winifred all too enthusiastically embraces the opportunity to shoo them out of the house.)

(Luckily, Sarah thinks, Bucky incentivizes easily.)

“Is Steve feelin’ any better yet?” Bucky asks, bouncing eagerly on his toes like a bird waiting for food.

Sarah laughs and rolls her eyes. “You’re very predictable. Yes, his fever broke last night. Get on with you, I know you want to go say hello.”

He darts in, smacks a kiss to her dimpling cheek, and shoots into the other room.

“Stevie!” she hears him exclaim with bright, genuine delight.

“Buck!” her boy squeaks back, equally cheered despite the roughness of his voice due to a persistent cough.

“Didja hear any of the game yesterday?”

“ _No!_ Tell me!”

“Okay, _so_ , the Dodgers started out up by—”

Shaking her head at their antics, Sarah sets about folding her laundry while her boys’ excited chatter fades comfortably into the background.

 

* * *

 

Their first kiss makes _sense_ — Steve, thirteen, sketching Bucky on the fire escape, long lean body laid out soft against rusty red sunset, and Bucky, fourteen, leaning over and pressing his mouth once, sweetly, to Steve’s; Steve, breathless as though struck, setting sun in his eyes, pressing back.


	2. things are huge and very small

“Before you say anythin’, I feel like death,” Stevie groans as soon as Bucky walks into the bedroom.

Bucky beams a shit-eating grin at the testy, newly-differentiated omega _._ Steve’s differentiation had manifested in an itchy weeklong fever overlaid by Steve’s patented brand of cantankerousness. “Aw, doll, but I’m so proud of you.”

Steve’s tousled head emerges from his nest of blankets to shoot Bucky a nasty glare. “Oh, fuck off.”

 

* * *

 

“What if you’re omega too?” Steve whispers to him one night as they lie together, curled on Bucky’s floor on the couch cushions.

Bucky winks. “Then I’ll just hafta get real creative with my hands, won’t I.” He rolls over to face Steve, pouting lips bitten crimson, and thinks that starting practice for that now might be a _great_ idea.

 

* * *

 

Bucky’s differentiation hits in a flash of heat down his torso and a long, gasping _wrench_ of breath. The first thing he thinks is that Steve’s going to be _so mad_ that he got stuck with the fever and Bucky got away with a minute of gasping for air like a fish. The second thing he thinks is, _Becca’s never gonna let me live this down._

He rushes to Steve’s apartment, bursts through the door, and there’s Steve, curled in a quilt on his couch, sketching. Bucky skids to a halt in front of him, heart pounding. Steve’s nostrils flare once before he sits up, sketchbook dropping abruptly, forgotten, to the floor.

“Bucky,” he says.

“Alpha,” he says.

“ _Mine,”_ he says.

 

 


	3. i promise you love; time will not take away that

They move in together after Sarah Rogers’ funeral, Steve drifting distant in his own head, Bucky doing the heavy lifting and following Steve with anxious eyes. In the heart of queer Brooklyn, no one gives two men together a serious look, especially not an alpha-omega pair, and despite the deep ache of loss Steve starts smiling again when Bucky takes his hand and dances him across the fire escape.

(Bucky makes it his mission to always make Steve smile like that.)

The community in Steve and Bucky's neighborhood isn't new to sweeping subversive style. Bucky and Steve are quickly drawn into a world of gender presentation, sexual transgression, and a secret nightlife fed by cheap whiskey and sticky scarlet lipstick. Friends of theirs whirl through the dancehalls in scandalously high heels one night, then done up in tailored slacks and blazers complete with watch fobs the next. One night, Steve lets the queens spike his sooty lashes with mascara and lace his waist in a sleek sable corset, walking towards Bucky with swaying hips and a smirk that leaves the alpha's mouth bone dry.

In these spaces, there are _books_ and _music_ overflowing and _worlds built from words_ and—

("Solidarity, forever—" chants Steve at liberation protests along with the crowd— "state silence is violence!")

The queerness of Brooklyn clings close to the shoulders of those around whom it's draped. Its secrecy lies bruised, overripe, dripping warm and sticky like an August peach. When the intimacy becomes too much, Bucky takes Steve up on their apartment's roof and kisses and kisses him under the high, veiled moon.

(Of course, they run into their share of assholes— women who whisper to each other behind their gloves, men who sneer pejoratives at them from the bars— but they’ve grown up being hated before (Bucky, half-Jew, half-Catholic; Steve, chronically-ill son of a single Irish immigrant mother) and it’s easy to smirk back and watch the world keep turning.)

 

* * *

 

Because Steve is _Steve_ , he spends their first year together getting blood all over what Bucky thinks is every alley in Brooklyn, and, because Bucky is _Bucky,_  he spends their first year together soaking Steve's bodily fluids out of their well-worn couch _._

“You’re such a dumbass,” Bucky scowls, swatting at Steve’s head when the idiot stumbles in with a black eye and gashed chin.

“You love me,” Steve shoots back, wincing weakly when Bucky dabs iodine at the cut.

Bucky sighs long-sufferingly. “Can’t argue with that logic.”

They’re all right.


	4. once, i saw a bee drown in honey, and i understood

There’s nothing, Bucky muses from time to time, quite as particularly, surreally wonderful as fucking Steve Rogers. He could daydream about those slender legs wrapped around his waist, the callused artist’s hands scoring across his shoulders, that slick _ass_ — he's confident he could spend literal _years_ rhapsodizing over the beauty of Steve Rogers’ ass—, and, oh, that wicked, _filthy_ mouth that can do so many equally wicked, _filthy_ things.

(The bonding process itself is _much_ less enjoyable: Bucky,  _alpha,_ loves Steve flushed and fevered with want, necklaced with violet butterfly bruises; Steve,  _omega,_ can't help but flatten his chest to the bed when Bucky's voice drops into low, dangerous alpha timbre; but neither particularly enjoys the presence of blood during their play and the bonding bite certainly fits that criterium. In the moment, Steve groans and shudders and bares his throat almost unwillingly, swearing like a sailor while Bucky whispers apologies into the bloody wings of his collarbones. The crimson-raw flesh quickly scars over into clean white ridges and Bucky sucks bruises over it every night so it stands out, ruddy, against Steve's pale skin.)

(“Yours, Buck,” Steve pants, thick lashes fluttering on his cheeks as Bucky licks up the clean sweep of his throat. “Always. Body and soul. Line starts and ends with you.”)

(“You,” Bucky rasps, reaching for Steve to lick into his plush mouth, “are in my fuckin' _blood_ ,” and his voice cracks like he’s twelve again, flushed and wrecked by Steve’s nearness, “I think I was made to loveyou _._ ”)

(“I love you so goddamn much,” Steve whispers, " _so_ _goddamn much_.")

 


	5. night would paint herself onyx and thus, demand a sacrifice (i gave her my heart)

Steve enlists.

(Bucky doesn’t.)

Steve enlists.

(Bucky doesn’t.)

Steve enlists.

(Bucky doesn't.)

Steve enlists.

(Turns out war gets everyone in the end.)


	6. he laughed, and if i could have bottled the sound and gotten drunk on it every night, i would have

Captivity, once one gets past the gut-clenching fear, turns out to be stiflingly dull.

Everyone in Bucky’s cage stands sprawled out against the bars, each caked in dirt, blood, and unrecognizable substances no one particularly wants to identify. The Nazis haven’t separated them by differentiation, letting the scents in the air blend together in a vaguely nauseating olfactory cocktail. Bucky knows he, the British lieutenant, the mustached American, and the American from Fresno are all alphas, prickling a little at proximity before settling down with a handshake and rolled eyes at their own hormones; the African-American soldier and French  _résistance_ fighter both betas, scent neutral and light, having eyed up the alphas warily at first before folding down next to them, judging solidarity in captivity much more universally important than anticipating any potential conflict. 

“Anyone waiting at home for you boys?” Dugan, mustache rusty red against grimy green-grey _everything,_ asks to break the boredom.

“Left a lady in D.C.," Jones answers first, “finest woman on the East Coast.”

Dernier sighs with a goofy grin. “ _Ma copine, attendant aux barricades pour que Paris se lève de nouveau avec le feu.”_

“The missus,” says Morita. The grit in his voice has everyone shifting and silent. “But she’s with my family in the camps. Back home.”

 _(Back home._ Bucky imagines everyone he knows rounded up, forced from their homes into dusty barracks, distrusted and trapped by the only country they know simply because of their heritage. He can’t conceive the sheer _betrayal_ Jim Morita must feel. His respect for the man, serving his country despite the blood in its history, increases.)

“No lady for me.” The British officer, Falsworth, clears his throat, carrying on the conversation with forced lightness in his crisp tone. “Broke my heart a week before shipping out. She’s living with a beta man now, I hear.”

Everyone hums in sympathy. Alpha-beta, beta-beta, or beta-omega relationships carry less strain than same-designation relationships; they're legal but still relatively taboo despite increasing calls for a liberation movement. Multiple times, Bucky’d picked Steve up, still bleeding, from police stations after political protests turned into brawls with law enforcement.

(“You can’t just _pick a fight with a cop_ , Steve! They have _guns_!”)

(“Dammit, Buck, if you’d heard the shit people were yellin’! The cops weren’t doin’ nothin’ but laughin’.”)

(“I swear to God, if you get killed pissin’ off a police officer—”)

(—you’ll, what, mourn in dignified silence, huh? Get outta here, Buck, you know you’d join the lib protests in the streets and start burnin’ down the pigs’ system as soon as you could.”)

(“I just hate that you get hurt, Stevie.”)

(“Some things are just worth bleedin’ for, I guess.”)

“I got my fella waitin’ for me in Brooklyn,” Bucky murmurs, needing to make Steve’s boldness, his beautiful brave face, real again and not just ephemeral memory. “Smallest, angriest omega you ever seen, like a fuckin’ mongoose. Can’t let any injustice go, comes home beat up and bleedin’ more often 'n not.” He swallows, throat suddenly tight. “Bonded five years as of next June.”

Eyes widen around him. “Bonded already? You’re only, what, twenty-two, twenty-three?” Dugan asks in shock.

Bucky knows it’s young for a bond, even rare, but can’t help bristling. “Twenty-four. And I knew Stevie when we were kids. Been draggin’ him out of fights since we were ten. Nursin’ him back to health, too— little shit almost died from pneumonia six times before we even turned twenty.”

“Sounds like you spent all your time saving his life,” Jones says softly.

Bucky shakes his head, smiling softly. “Nah. Maybe savin’ his lungs. But he’s been the one keepin’ my heart beatin’ since the moment I met him.”

“Ugh, commitment.” Falsworth rolls his eyes, breaking the solemnity and prompting a wave of laughter with his dry tone. It quickly fades as a guard walks by and bangs the bars of the cage with the barrel of his gun.

“ _Wer ist als nächster dran?”_ he says, grinning nastily.

“Asshole says, ‘Who’s next,’” Jones translates with a glare.

“ _Sich verpissen,_ ” Bucky calls sweetly. He always knew the few German phrases he picked up while working at the docks would come in handy, even if they got his head slapped when he muttered them at home. Winifred Barnes had possessed— in addition to an incredible family cookbook and an excellent head for bookkeeping— the ability to speak English, Polish, Yiddish, and German, as well as a pair of agile hands ready to keep her troublesome brood in line.

The guard tilts his head, eying Bucky with a gleam in his eye. “ _Oh, wir haben einen live. Der Arzt wird es genießen, von Ihnen zu hören.”_

Bucky only picks up spotty phrases— “we have,” “alive,” “doctor”— and settles for a daintily raised middle finger in response. The guard just laughs, walking away.

He glances at Jones. “Any idea what that was about?”

Jones shakes his head, pale under his dark complexion. “I don’t know. But you might want to keep your head down, Sergeant. Nothing about that sounded good.”

 

* * *

 

It's not.

 

* * *

 

(“Bucky? Oh, my god. It’s me— it’s Steve.”)

_Hey there, Stevie. Funny seein' you 'round these parts._

("C'mon—")

_Shut up, Steven, I'm concentratin' here. Couldn'ta hallucinated you naked instead of this shit? You're so much more fun when you're not wearin' pants._

("I thought you were _dead!")_

_Same, pal._

(“I joined the army.”)

_You're even more stupid as a hallucination than you are in person, you know that?_

("So far.")

_Dumbass omega._

  

_Oh. You're real._

  

 _Ugh,_  Steve _._

 

* * *

 

They make it to a clearing at least five miles from the HYDRA site before Bucky's knees give out under him. Steve catches him with a frantic noice. “ _Bucky!_ ”

In the background, Bucky dimly hears Falsworth shouting for a halt. Men around them gratefully drop to the ground, many bleeding, all exhausted to the bone. “I’m fine,” he pants. “We can go. We gotta go.”

Steve doesn’t even glance away, running his hands over Bucky’s face and chest as if to convince himself Bucky’s real. “Christ, Bucky— I’m sorry, I’m so sorry—”

“We need to—”

“I thought you  _died,_ Buck, I couldn’t _feel you_ —”

“I’m okay now, you found me— you got me, Stevie, I— Jesus, Mary, 'n Joseph, Steve, what the fuck are you _doin’_ out here?”

“You can’t fuckin’ leave me behind, that’s why, you hear, I’ll yank you right out of hell if I have to—”

“Sweetheart, come on, shh.”

“ _You_ _can’t leave me._ ”

“I won’t, I won’t ever again, I swear. I swear.”


	7. for myself i am too heavy, and for you too light

The serum (“God _damn_ it _,_ Steve, I leave you alone for six _fuckin’_ minutes”) washes the bright white of Steve’s bonding mark out to a barely-visible silver crescent and the first time Bucky sees him shirtless he nearly has a panic attack. “Is it gone— did you—”

Steve rushes to show him, presses Bucky’s face to the glands at his throat, “Buck, _no_ , it’s right here, see—”

(Bucky still hyperventilates until Steve gets him a dose of laudanum and makes him put his head between his knees for twenty minutes.)


	8. you occupy everything, you occupy everything

In the dusky, intimate atmosphere of the pub, the red of the alpha’s dress coats her curves like blood, perfect and crimson-slick.

Steve doesn’t look away.

Bucky has to turn his head before he throws up.

 

* * *

 

(“Carter watches you like she wants to taste you and I— you watch her too, Stevie, you _do_ , don't tell me you don't— you don’t do it because of me, I know, I— you do it because it’s _her._ ”)

(“I’ll _never_ not want you, Bucky.”)

(“But you’ll never not want her, either.”)

 


	9. lingering, shining by itself,

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content summary: Jewish character becoming aware of concentration camps.

After the overwhelming adrenaline rush of the rescue from Azzano, their brief furlough in England feels like a goddamn _dream._ For the first time in months Bucky makes love to Steve in an _actual bed,_ not tucked away from the huddled bivouac or in a muffled, frantic slick-scrape of bodies against trees, trying to press inside each other before calls to get moving inevitably shatter the night silence. Steve rubs his summery scent possessively, viciously, over the scent glands in Bucky's neck, and Bucky wants to crack open his chest and curl up inside his ribcage in the most intimate of embraces, work himself into the omega so thoroughly so that nothing can _ever_ rip him from Steve again. 

Instead, Bucky puts Steve on hands and knees, laving over his furled hole until Steve shivers into a taut, aching orgasm, then works him over again against the wall, coaxing high-pitched whines from Steve’s throat. Steve begs prettily for his alpha’s knot each time. They cling until their scents mingle and Bucky hums, "Mine, mine, mine," into Steve's hair and Steve breathes back, "Yours, yours, yours." Bucky pulls the omega tighter into his chest and tells him to sleep, promising he’ll stay.

He keeps his promise until a quiet knock at their door has him slipping out of bed, dressed only in boots, trousers, and tags, necklaced with bruises in the shape of Steve’s mouth.

Peggy Carter stands in front of him in immaculate uniform. Her mouth twists just the smallest bit at his appearance, wide smoky eyes flickering fast down his bare torso, and he smirks, knife-sharp, suddenly itching for a fight. “Like what you see, Agent?”

The tiniest flush stains her cheeks and she clears her throat. “I’d like to request a moment of your time, Sergeant. If you don’t mind.”

They reconvene in the officers’ tent ten minutes later. Bucky makes sure that, when he puts on his shirt and coat, the marks on his neck show brightly above his collar.

“Sergeant,” Agent Carter says bluntly, “I asked you for this meeting to talk about why you cannot seem to work with me as a commanding officer.”

Bucky blinks slowly. “I hold a massive amount of respect for you, ma’am.” 

“Is that so.”

“You’re an excellent agent. The men listen to you; you garner loyalty.”

“Do I have _your_ loyalty, Sergeant Barnes?” She meets his gaze straight-on.

He smirks, letting his eyelids drop heavy, looking up at her through thick lashes. “Of course, ma’am.”

“Liar,” she says, turning away.

“I don’t—” and he doesn’t have an answer now, doesn’t have the _voice_ to answer until it rises like acid in his throat to be spat. “Look, he’s _mine_ , Agent— he's been mine for near fifteen damn years— but if not for me we both know he woulda belonged to _you_  and there’s a part of him that has _never_ stopped lookin' for it.” He closes his eyes, jaw muscle working in his cheek, grits out, “You’re in charge of at least some o' his story now, ma'am. And a story where I don’t have him is a story where the earth stops turnin' and the barren face of it burns me to the ground. You could turn my whole world dry to dust, Agent Carter,” he rasps.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers. “Thank you for letting me in.”

“I hate you,” he tells her.

“I know,” she says.

 

* * *

 

On Thanksgiving Day of 1944, Bucky learns what a concentration camp is.

(The war goes on.)


	10. david with the sling; and i the bow

In Brooklyn, Bucky could've been a professional,he'd been so practiced at dealing with Steve's heats, and, _oh,_ what gorgeous heats they were: Steve, turned-on and spitting mad because of it, refusing to admit how much his body'd ramped up until Bucky took him by the scruff and yanked him out into his lap; Steve, sulky and sore, curling up with cramps while Bucky fed him soup savory as he could make and rubbed his swollen scent glands; Steve, wet and silky soft, presenting to Bucky like a work of art—whining and pressing his slim chest to the bed in blatant invitation, putting on a show for his  _very_ interested alpha— and taking a knot like a goddamn  _gift._

(Since he'd first ordered a wide-eyed Bucky out of his clothes at a respective seventeen and eighteen, Steve had also officially decided that, with Bucky a willing co-conspirator, fucking away a heat was the way to go. And who was Bucky to doubt his omega’s wisdom?)

This time, Steve’s heat hits out of nowhere in the middle of Strasbourg, France, neatly two hours after the liberation of the city from German control. In quick succession, Steve blanches paper-white, then flushes poppy-red before grabbing Bucky bodily by the arm and manhandling him into the inn the Commandos have somehow commandeered for the night just as the mouthwatering scent of his slick starts to spill into the air.

“What the fuck, Steve,” Bucky gasps, turned on and cursing Steve’s damn timing, “we have _briefings._ We have _meetings._ ”

“I need you _in me_ ,” his bonded hisses back, hands grabbing at Bucky’s belt, “ _alpha,_ ” and, _oh._ Okay. Okay, then.

They’re _very_ late to their briefing.

 

* * *

 

“I wanna do you,” Steve says when they arrive in Paris. “You gonna let an omega put it in you?”

“Whatever you want,” Bucky growls. “Just fuck me, Steve, _Christ_ , want you to touch me so bad.”

“Mother of god,” Steve says (prayerfully, Bucky would think, if Steve weren't such a goddamn  _Catholic_ that even associating the Virgin with unrelated sex acts would have him self-flagellating for the next year) and then his mouth is slanting over Bucky’s and Bucky's not sure if Steve’s actively trying to suck the breath from his lungs but— Christ— he’s gasping for breath and on the edge of coming just from the heat of Steve’s mouth. Bucky thinks he might have died already, just a little bit, because of how good Steve feels against him. “Bucky. You’re so fuckin' gorgeous.”

“Kettle,” Bucky tosses back before lowering his voice to a purr. “Look at you. So much skin shown off just for me. Lips like cherries, tits pretty as a dame’s— oh, sweetheart, you’re lovely. Can’t keep my hands goddamn off you.”

Steve’s mouth drops open. “ _Bucky_.”

“God, I want you so bad, want you in me so bad,” the alpha murmurs. “Didn’t know I wanted it but now it’s all I can think about. I’m drippin’ for you, doll, I’m soakin’.” Precome shines on his stomach above the flushed head of his cock. 

"Jesus," Steve rasps, and lets a slender finger run down Bucky's spine to slip, slicked, into his furled hole. Alphas' bodies aren't made to open the same way as omegas'— Bucky's tight, so tight Steve thinks he might die just imagining his cock sheathed in such silky heat. When Bucky's hole flutters easily around his finger, he pushes in another digit, then another, alongside the first. Bucky makes a punched-out noise Steve wants to hear  _again_ and  _again_ and  _again._ "You like that?"

"I'm not a fuckin' dame," Bucky hisses, "I can  _take it,_  stop treatin' me like I'll  _break_ _._ "

"Fine," and Steve's pulling out his fingers and slicking up his thick cock instead, "your turn to stay still," and he flips Bucky onto his stomach, and

 

_oh_

 

_my_

 

_god_

 

* * *

 

In the blue novels, heat sends both omegas and alphas into spiraling sexual desperation, craving raw sexual contact like others would oxygen and water. Huge, swollen knots dominate much of the imagery. Hydration, nutrition, and sleep cycles take a back seat to frantic, weeklong lovemaking. That trending need to be locked in place, Bucky thinks, seems to appease some deep-seated societal abandonment issues.

He gets it.

 


	11. stone and sky, they marry here

Gender discrimination in the Howling Commandos is as prominent as it was in DUMBO, meaning Steve and Bucky christen half the barns in western Europe to the horror of a unit that—

“—just wanted some fucking _sleep_ , Sarge,” complains Falsworth, “not my goddamn CO _yowling_ in my _ear_ all night long.”

Bucky just grins, curling his tongue under his teeth in a way that makes Steve flush cherry-red. “Have you _seen_ his ass in that uniform?”

Dugan makes a considering noise. Bucky gestures emphatically as if to say, _See?_

“ _Si nous ne sommes pas foutus, vous ne pas baisé!”_ Dernier hollers across camp.

“If we’re not getting laid, you’re not getting laid,” Jonesy translates generously. “Asshole,” he adds as an editorial.

Bucky pouts. “Spoilsports.”


	12. you wanna fly, you got to give up the shit that weighs you down

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content summary: bullet wound, recovering from bullet wound.

Crossing from France into Switzerland, Bucky takes a bullet meant for Steve in his thigh and almost bleeds out before they reach camp. He wakes up from emergency surgery to an armful of tearstained Steve and a circle of huddled Commandos, all shying away from the swatting medical team irritated by the invasion of damp, large men.

Bucky surfaces with a strained gasp of breath and a forced smirk. “Hey, gorgeous, you the nurse?”

Steve bolts upright. “Bucky, hi. _Bucky_. Christ, you scared me. I thought we were gonna lose you.”

“Can’t get rid of me, Stevie-doll. I’m stuck to you like traffic in the Lincoln Tunnel. Not goin’ anywhere anytime soon.”

“More like a fungus,” Steve says with a small, relieved smile, “or a basement mold.”

Bucky strokes his fingers gently over the bruise-purple shadows under Steve's eyes. “That’s right. Growin’ right on you, sweetheart. Always.”

Later, Agent Carter stops by the medical tent to see how he’s doing. Steve’s finally resting, sleeping fitfully, long form stretched out against Bucky’s hip. Bucky sits, flipping through Steve’s sketchbooks as Carter comes to perch by his cot.

“How is your leg?” she asks quietly, careful not to wake Steve.

Bucky runs a slow, heavy hand over the down of Steve’s nape, letting his omega’s even breaths cool the pulse of adrenaline Peggy Carter’s presence sears into his bloodstream. “Fine. Nurses said I’ll be walkin’ again by the end of the week. With a _crutch_.” He crinkles his nose in distaste.

Her voice is low and rough. “Jones said you took the bullet for Steve.”

Bucky shrugs. “Moron's gonna get himself killed if I don’t watch his six. Sometimes that means losin’ a bit more blood than expected. Idiot omega has the self-preservation instincts of a damn _lemming_.”

The other alpha laughs despite her solemnity. “I’m glad he has you here. Protecting his back.”

“Me too.” They sit in an easy silence for a moment, both watching Steve shift and press himself impossibly tighter into the curve of Bucky’s body. “You know, even when those Nazi bastards had me on that damn table in Azzano,” Bucky says slowly, “I knew I'd be okay because at least Steve was safe. I’d repeat it like Steve’s ma used to do with the Hail Mary— name, rank, number, _Steve is safe._  Whatever they did to me, knowin’ that? Kept my heart beatin’ when nothin’ else did.” He looks up finally, meeting her intense gaze with one of his own. “But now he’s here, in hell, with me and the monsters. And I’m just so damn terrified that someday that bullet with his name on it'll come when I’m not there to take it instead.

“I know you watch him, still,” he continues. “I've seen— when he smiles, you do too, and when he hurts, so does your soul. I know you can’t stop it— I don’t hold it against you. See, Steve always just—” he breathes in, and it’s _shattering_ — “made people’s hearts beat in time with his, just by bein’ him.”

“You loved him first,” she whispers brokenly.

“I know,” he says, “but now he belongs to you as much as he does to me. War does that to people. Takes what’s inside and rips it open for everyone to see.” 


	13. i am too young and i’ve loved too much

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content summary: Jewish character receiving news of family killed in Holocaust.

Carter ends up the one who finally gives him news of his mother’s family, disappeared in the early winter to a camp named Treblinka.

He screams for so long that the next day his voice sounds like he gouged his vocal chords out with his own nails. Steve holds him and holds him and Bucky wonders if, without Steve, there’d be any of him left to hold together at all.


	14. love at first sight, at last sight, at ever and ever sight

In the war photos, Bucky always stands on Steve’s left. “Couldn’t hear outta that ear as a kid,” he explains when the Commandos ask for the story, “and the little bastard kept gettin’ jumped from that side, too. I figured if he was too fuckin’ stupid to stop gettin’ himself beat to hell from the left in fights, I’d just hafta make sure I covered his nine for him.”

“Aw, fuck off, Buck,” Steve says, kicking his foot lightly.

“You’re still a dumb shit pickin’ fights with the kids who aim for your blind side,” Bucky tells his omega, and laughs, “and I’m still that dumb shit at your nine, makin’ sure you just walk out alive.”


	15. how the soul hung speechless in the pause

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content summary: violent sex, including choking and blood.

More than anything, Bucky knows his flaws. They easily come to mind— possessive, selfish, flighty, materialistic, obsessive, maybe prone to alcohol dependence and addictive behaviors— but he’s never been hotheaded, combative, looking for conflict. Never sacrificed himself over his ego.

(That’s Steve’s territory, he thinks. Bucky’s never been afraid to back down from a fight.)

 

* * *

 

On their last night in Geneva, somehow the brass gets them set up in one of those flush hotel gigs with hot water and soft, fine sheets. Of course, as Captain America's men, they get spoiled stupid with their own rooms. Bucky, not one to pass up a blessing, settles down onto his plush bed and waits.

Not five minutes later, Steve slams through the door, not bothering to knock before pushing Bucky down and proceeding to lick his way into his goddamn _lungs._ He nearly tears off the alpha's shirt, rakes his nails over the flat brown nipples and bites along the creases of his hipbones, ruts his erection relentlessly against Bucky’s through his trousers. “What in _God’s_ _name_ was that for?” Bucky gasps with wide eyes, "never mind, don't care, just  _keep going_ —"

Steve sucks at his tongue and growls in his throat, almost alpha-deep, and _oh my Christ in fuckin' heaven_ Bucky's going to  _die_. “Want you  _now_."

Before Bucky can fist his hands in the omega's hair and suck bruises into his collarbones like he wants, a brisk knock raps on the door and Peggy Carter steps into the room. 

Bucky shoves Steve behind him, broadening his position in front of the omega as if to warn Carter's eyes off him. "Get out," he snarls, but Steve's eyes blow black and hot and his red mouth drops open. Bucky's cock thickens in involuntarily reaction to the sudden spike in his bonded's desire and he growls, bristling at the presence of another alpha while his own omega is practically begging for a knot.

"Look at you, Steven," Carter murmurs, "so impatient you couldn't even lock the door."

"Bucky," Steve rasps out, "it's Peggy." Bucky can feel him shaking, just a little, where they're still pressed together.

He glances down, wraps a hand around the nape of Steve's neck. “ _I don’t share,_ " he hisses into the omega's ear, meeting Carter's impassive gaze as he _s_ _queezes_ until his wayward omega mewls in pleasure. The alpha timbre has Steve whimpering and burying his face in Bucky's shoulder.

“What if _he’s_ not the one I want to share?” Carter breathes, rosebud mouth curling. “Would you let me take  _you_ , Sergeant?”

" _Oh_ ," Steve huffs out against Bucky's throat,  _"oh, Buck._ " AndSteve's desperate _want,_  picturing Bucky's teeth at Carter's neck, Carter's tongue licking delicately up Bucky's cock,swells Bucky's desire until he tastes it on his tongue, dark as red wine.

(He's never been good at saying no to Steve.)

“Bite and you fuckin' die, Carter _,”_ Bucky threatens lowly. She licks those dangerous lips and Bucky almost groans out loud, hand still at Steve’s vulnerable nape.

“Bet you taste like sin,” Carter says lowly. Steve absorbs her words as if taking a physical blow, shuddering against Bucky's chest until Bucky thinks he might combust on the spot. “Tell me, Sergeant: if I offered to fuck you, would you beg?” 

 _(Hate you, crave you, wanna make you scream for it, wanna make you_ hurt  _for it_ _.)_  

"Get your pants off," Bucky hisses into Steve's ear instead of answering.

"Ah," Steve gasps, struggling out of his clothes, " _Bucky_ —" and Bucky's sitting up, moving to the headboard and pushing his omega down onto his back by his hip as Carter pads towards him. She slips easily out of her uniform, letting the fabric pool at her ankles; she leaves on her nylons and Steve nearly chokes on his own tongue.

"Stay down," she says, and Steve moans.

"Bucky,  _alpha_ _—_ "

Bucky snarls and fists his right hand in Steve's hair, yanking his head back to bare his throat, the other curling smoothly under his jaw. He deliberately tightens his grip, both cutting off Steve's air and hiding his neck from Carter; Steve writhes under him. Carter's hand simultaneously wraps around the omega's swollen cock and he whimpers, summery scent flashing nearly unbearably sweet. "Oh, you're so good," she murmurs, "so _wet_ for me. You're quite lovely, Steve."

And then she's kissing him, folding those long legs around Steve's waist and sinking down hard onto Steve's cock. Bucky can feel his omega's desire like a physical thing sliding over his skin, his bonded's ingrainedurge to submit clashing viciously with his own instincts to _claim,_ and he throws his own head back and groans roughly as Steve fucks jerkily up into her. "Jesus _,_ Steve— _Stevie—_ oh, god, doll, you're gonna kill me like this—"

Steve's breath huffs shallow as Carter grinds on his cock, her heavy-lidded eyes locked on Bucky's. “Do you want me, Sergeant?” the alpha purrs lowly, her lips hovering open and crimson-slick against Bucky’s own. Her body grinds against his with Steve’s every push up into her. The omega's throat flexes spasmodically under Bucky's palm and Steve's legs splay open like an unwrapped present as he gasps sweetly with every roll of Carter's hips.

“Stop fishin' for compliments, Carter,” Bucky growls back, “you know I do.” He tightens his grip again on Steve's neck and Steve’s  _need_  rips like fire through his groin.

“How much?” Dark eyes flick up to his and hold his own strained gaze.

He knows what she’s asking and rumbles deep in his throat, wrapping his left hand in the hair at the nape of her neck and forcing her to arch her bare chest towards him. The rhythm of Steve’s thrusts makes Carter’s tits bounce prettily. “Not _that_ much.”

“Yes, you do,” she breathes.

 

* * *

 

Love doesn't make war any less likely to burn you to the ground, Bucky thinks, but it sure makes it sound like it's worth something.

 

* * *

 

In France, Carter rides Steve so hard he nearly passes out and Bucky closes an iron hand around her neck and fucks her brutally until she comes, black spots pounding the edges of her vision to the frantic beat of her pulse.

“Nothin' about this is healthy, y'know,” Bucky muses out loud after, languidly smoking a cigarette as Steve dozes, curled like a cat, in his lap.

Carter reaches out to snag the cigarette from his long, slim fingers. “Alphas aren’t built to leave other alphas _healthy,_ Sergeant—”

“—they’re built to leave 'em  _in pieces,_ ” he hums, and they laugh.

(She thinks he’ll _actually_ kill her when she cradles Steve’s throat delicately in her palm, strokes a finger over the scarred bondmark, and tells Bucky, “Mine.”)

(He leaves bruises dark like stained wine on her breasts in the shape of his mouth. She licks her own blood off her bitten lips and says, “More.”)

 

* * *

 

The last time, they tie Steve’s wrists to the posts of the bed and screw right in the omega’s lap. Bucky can feel every centimeter of Steve’s front, collarbones to groin, shuddering against his back. Carter’s an inferno wrapped around his waist, all scarlet-plush mouth with molten steel in her eyes. “Say it.”

He hisses, fucking up into her, rougher than he’s ever been, “I’m Steve’s, no one else’s, _never_.”

(In the same breath, he flips her underneath him, shoving her into Steve’s chest harder so he can toss her leg up over his shoulder and the other over his elbow. She keens and digs her nails into his shoulder when he forces himself deeper; he knows from Steve’s frantic whine she draws blood. It infuriates him.)

“You know that’s not true,” she purrs back, twisting to press wet, open-mouthed kisses under Steve’s ear and twine her arms back around the omega’s neck. He arches desperately, eyes squeezing closed and mouth dropping open in a thick moan. “He knows it too. Say it.”

Fury flashes through the alpha and he snarls, fisting his hands in his omega’s hair and crashing their mouths together. Steve pants into his mouth. “ _Bucky, please—”_

Carter ruts up against him harder, skin searingly hot. Her scent—red wine, heady and rich— suffocates him and he has to throw his head back to suck in air. “You sense it through the bond, Sergeant, you feel the way he’s achingfor it? He wants your cock in him, a knot in him, he’s _choking_ for it— feels like he’ll _die_ without it—”

“— _alpha—_ ”

“—and I can make him _come_ ,” she whispers, “I _want_ to make him come— think about how _good_ that’ll feel, giving your omega what he needs, Sergeant— I can touch him like he _needs_.”

Alpha timbre crackles between them, both wielding it desperately against the other.

He slams a hand against Carter’s sternum to force her back _hard_ against Steve’s chest, savoring Steve’s keening reaction to his petty show of physical dominance. “I’m his.”

“No,” she gasps hot into his mouth, “you’re _mine._ ”

“Damn you, I _won’t_ —”

“Say it.”

_"No!"_

“Bucky!” his omega wails. Bucky can feel how desperate Steve is through the bond, slick-sweet hole fluttering around air. “Please, I need it!”

“ _Dammit_ , all _right_ , Carter,” he breathes, “touch him. You win."

" _No,_ " she whispers, "you _know_ what I want _._ "

"Fuck," and he closes his eyes in defeat and lets Carter lick surrender, savory, from his lips, " _a_ _l_ _pha_.”

“Well done, Sergeant,” she says. That rosebud mouth presses, open, to his throat and he hears Steve sob ecstatically in the background, and it’s good.

 


	16. to bloom without bruises but with love

Steve’s walking towards the fire from the tree line, brushing off the dust from the last explosion when—

“Steven Grant _fuckin’_ Rogers!”

Their NCO's shout makes the other Commandos jump a foot in the air from where they’re huddled by the fire, smoking, playing cards, and cleaning their guns. Bucky gets to his feet and stalks towards Steve, expression _murderous_. Steve’s eyes go wide. “Bucky—”

“Shut your _goddamn_ mouth,” Bucky seethes as he shoves himself into Steve’s face, nostrils flaring as he scents the omega for blood. The other Commandos start subtly scooting towards the other side of the fire. “What the _hell_ were you thinkin’? Oh, that's right, you _fuckin' weren't!”_

Steve spreads his hands like he’s soothing an angry animal. Like a wolf. Or a velociraptor. A velociraptor with the ability to shoot a target through the eye from nine hundred yards and a homicidal scowl aimed _directly at him_. “I had it under control—”

“Control? You _idiot—”_ Bucky yells, “how am I supposed to _protect you_ when you go and fuckin' do shit like this— mmph!”

The Commandos blink. They’ve never seen someone _kiss_ death in the face, but they suppose there’s a first time for everything. If anyone can do it, it’s Captain America.

Bucky snarls, shoving his bonded back. “If you _ever_ do somethin’ that moronic durin’ a mission again I’ll shoot youin your goddamn face _myself—_ ”

“'Kay.” The Commandos watches as their CO agrees pleasantly, hauls the deadliest sniper in the entire U.S. Army back up against the nearest tree, and proceeds to kiss the ever-living _shit_ out of him.

The Commandos gape.

Bucky looks dazed. “Steve—”

“ _Alpha_.” And then his mouth is back on Bucky’s and the alpha is enthusiastically reciprocating and _Jesus fuck_ the star-spangled icon of freedom, justice, and Mom’s apple pie has his hands _disappearing into the other soldier’s pants_ and—

“Christ almighty, _my innocent eyes!”_ Dugan squawks. The Commandos can’t rip their eyes away from the spectacle in front of them. It’s like watching a trainwreck in progress.

“ _Putain d'Américains_ ,” Dernier grouches, and returns to cleaning his gun, “ _pas de dignité_.”

“I take it Steve’s uninjured,” Jones comments wryly.

“Only health risk he’s dealing with right now is running out of air,” Falsworth says, eyebrows raised delicately, and snickers.


	17. he makes me walk on high places

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content summary: concentration camps; Jewish character witnessing concentration camps as an outsider.

They find the next HYDRA base under a work camp in Austria. Steve bluntly refuses orders to leave, instead holing in with the emaciated, traumatized inmates until they can be airlifted out. Upon the Commandos’ arrival, two thousand pale, ghostly bodies greeted them at the electric fences. Now, watching the buildings of the camp char into embers, only seventeen hundred remain.

“ _Adank,_ ” they whisper to Bucky as he slips among them, murmuring in Yiddish.

“ _Es iz ale rekht itst,_ ” he says, “it’s all right. We will take you into our homes and fight for you. _Ir vet zeyn zikher—_ you'll be safe.”

Steve grieves for Bucky and the liberated prisoners, watches tears roll down his alpha’s cheeks as he bows his head with the people and, as one, they recite the ancient words of the mourner’s _kaddish_.

In their tent, after helping the last of the inmates into the planes, praising their resilience and assuring them of their safety with soft Yiddish, Bucky paces like a trapped animal, fingers curling around and around the knives at his belt. “I wanna burn the bastards _out,_ ” he snarls, voice gouged from stone. “I wanna hear ‘em fuckin’ _scream._ ”

Steve meets his alpha’s stone-cold stare with one of his flinty own. “We’ll make 'em _bleed,_ Buck _._ ”


	18. dearest, sweetest, best of friends— you know you all are these to me

Steve kisses him ferociously before they swing out over nothingness. “I love you. You good goin' after Zola?” _After last time,_ the unspoken words echo in the silence between them, _I wouldn’t blame you._

Bucky fists his hands in his omega’s hair, licking his way into Steve’s lush mouth, copper-sunlight-honey sweet on his tongue. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

Steve grins viciously. “Then it sounds like we’ve got a train to catch, sweetheart.”

 

* * *

 

(As it turns out, catching the train is not the issue.)

 


	19. seeking whom he may devour

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 10/21/18: I've been dissatisfied with where I took this story for a long time, so I've decided to take it from where I "lost" the thread and rewrite it the way I want. This narrative continues as a TFA/TWS-AU. Content warnings that have not applied to previous Delta canon but will be in effect in upcoming chapters: dramatized, non-explicit torture; amnesia; amputation; miscarriage; implied attempted sexual assault.
> 
> If you've read Delta in its entirety before, this is going to be very different. With that said, I hope you enjoy this new direction as much as I do. Divergence from previous Delta canon starts here.
> 
> There are no specific content warnings for this chapter.

Steve’s spent his entire life following Bucky and doesn't hesitate this time either. When the bar breaks and Bucky plummets, Steve launches himself after. 

“ _No!”_  Bucky screams “ _Steve!”_  

Steve slams into his lover, wraps him in his arms, and prays.

 

* * *

 

They're down in the snow together for a long time, long enough that Bucky's eyelashes feather with frost over his marble-pale cheeks, and crimson pearls bead on his cracked lips:  _Hear, O Israel—_

"Bucky, stay with me," Steve chokes out, voice gouged out and jagged. "You're bleedin' bad."

"'M always with you," Bucky murmurs raggedly, "my Stevie, my baby. End 'f th' line. Think I mighta got off th' train too early this time, though," and his eyes roll up into his head when he sighs out an agonized, " _sorry_ ," and goes limp against Steve's chest.

"No, no, no," Steve whispers. "No, no. Bucky. Wake up. Bucky, please. Wake up."

(He's still whispering it when the soldiers come.)

_Eli, eli, lama sabachthani?_


	20. as if you could kill time without injuring eternity

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 10/21/18: divergence from previous Delta canon starts in chapter 19. This narrative continues as a TFA/TWS-AU. Content warnings that have not applied to previous Delta canon but will be in effect in upcoming chapters: dramatized, non-explicit torture; amnesia; amputation; coerced impregnation; miscarriage; implied attempted sexual assault.
> 
> There are no specific content warnings for the following chapter.

They wake up in a small, dark cell when the rapping of soldiers' boots jolts them from unconsciousness. "You okay?" Bucky breathes weakly. 

The hot, crackling pain of his mending bones makes Steve grit his teeth, but he nods as fIve men enter the observation space. He can feel Bucky’s dull agony pounding heavy in his gut and moves to tell him to take it easy when an alpha wearing a Soviet colonel's insignia steps forward. “Good morning, soldiers,” he says in clipped, Russian-tinged English.

 (Bucky, bloodstained and pale, shoulders his way in front of Steve. “I thought the Soviets were s’posed to be our allies,” he grits out quietly, “double-crossin’ bastards.”)

(“We’ll figure this out,” Steve murmurs back. “If we can get to a radio—“)

(“—an’ make it across the border in a Russian winter?” Bucky gasps back, voice cracking with pain. “Plus this arm’s not gonna be any use, Stevie.”)

(“ _We’ll figure this out_ ,” Steve hisses. “I’m _not_ lettin’ them have you. So just shut up and rest, ‘kay?”)

“I apologize for the poor conditions,” the colonel says, watching them with cold eyes, “but we must be careful about our national security, naturally.”

“Naturally.” Steve meets his gaze. “What do you want with us? This does not adhere to standard prisoner-of-war operating procedures.”

“You’re not under international jurisdiction anymore,” a slick voice says from the door, "Captain Rogers."

(“No,” Bucky chokes out, sounding like he swallowed broken glass. “Oh, Jesus, no.”) 

It’s Steve’s turn to thrust himself in front of Bucky,making his bigger body a protective barrier between his alpha and Arnim Zola as the small, frog-like man steps through the arch, catches his eye, and smiles, tilting his head like a bird. “Welcome back, Sergeant,” the doctor says, slick as oil. "Wonderful to make your acquaintance again. A little bird told me, Colonel,” he continues, turning to the military alpha with a little creeping grin, “that your second guest is our wayward sergeant’s bonded omega.”

The colonel nods curtly at Bucky's weak frame, tucked between Steve's back and the stone wall. " _да_."

(“They won’t touch you,” Steve vows to Bucky. “ _I_ _won’t let them have you._ ”)

Zola shoots him a brief glance. "The omega will be difficult to appease."

The colonel shrugs. "So put him out of the way. He's just an omega."

“Oh,” Zola says, “but he is _so_ much more than that. Aren’t you, Captain?”

“Stay the hell away from him,” Bucky forces out, alpha-deep, though Steve can feel him shaking against his back. He bites the rest of his words back and Steve knows it’s from agony rather than any intimidation technique.

Steve bares his teeth at Zola in a vicious snarl. “I’m gonna rip your fuckin’ throat out.”

“So stoic,” Zola sighs with glee. “Yes, it _will_ be fascinating to continue our experiment. For HYDRA, of course.”

“Hail HYDRA,” the soldiers chorus. The colonel doesn’t say anything, just watches them with those calculating hawk’s eyes. 

(Bucky snarls defiantly at them, but the pain and terror pulsing through the bond make Steve nauseous and he unconsciously presses his alpha closer to the wall.)

Zola smiles warmly. “Shall we begin?”


	21. in thoughts from the visions of the night, when deep sleep falls upon men

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 10/21/18: divergence from previous Delta canon starts in chapter 19. This narrative continues as a TFA/TWS-AU. Content warnings that have not applied to previous Delta canon but will be in effect in upcoming chapters: non-explicit torture; amnesia; amputation; coerced impregnation; miscarriage; implied attempted sexual assault.
> 
> Content warning: amputation.

They take Bucky’s arm first; they take Steve next. Bucky kills four soldiers before they manage to knock him unconscious long enough to pump Steve with elephant tranquilizers and drag him from the cell.

They give Bucky an arm first; they take Steve next. Bucky kills nine soldiers before they manage to knock him unconscious long enough to strap Steve into their shiny new prototype chair.

It's unclear which thrills Zola more. 

 

* * *

 

When he used to drag Bucky along with him to Sunday Mass, Steve would press his rosary to his lips and lace his hand with Bucky's under the pew and roll the rosary beads between his fingers to the metered cadence of the Latin. Bucky would tickle his palm to see if he'd break solemn character, and Steve would snort and swat back at him.

Bucky's favorite part of mass was the singing of the  _kyrie_. He liked to watch Steve's mouth frame the syllables. If Steve happened to flush over his cheekbones when he caught Bucky doing it— well, then.  _What's the good of attendin' Sunday Mass, Stevie_ , Bucky got to tease,  _if you ain't got any sins?_

( _Lord, have mercy_ , he prays now, cradling Steve's bleeding head in his lap like a  _pietà_ marble; _Lord, let him be saved. Lord, don't let them take him from me like this. Hear, O Israel—_ )

For a moment, before Steve sobs out quietly,  _Bucky_ , he thinks there might be a response.

 

* * *

 

Once upon a time, the soldier wonders why he knows what summer tastes like.

(Once upon a time, they have to scorch it out of him every day for three years before he stops asking.)  


	22. where there will be weeping

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: implied torture.

They put a gun and a hooded man on his knees in front of Bucky.

“Shoot,  _soldat_ ,” the colonel prompts, “and you can save him.”

“Go fuck yourself,” Bucky says.

 

* * *

 

 Bucky surfaces  _en route_ to the experimentation room with two men gripping his arms and his feet leaving streaks of crimson on the stone floor. He hisses when they strap him, flat on his back, on the metal table. “Anyone ever told you your bedside manner is shit?”

“Have you heard the term, 'carrot and stick', Sergeant?” the colonel asks calmly, pacing smoothly around the table.

“I came here for the dessert wine selection, not your shitty monologues,” Bucky drawls back. He turns his head and coughs a mouthful of blood onto the neatly tiled floor. “You get a terrible review.”

“It’s a simple combination of reward and punishment used to induce a desired behavior,” the colonel continues, unperturbed, “based on the idea that a cart driver might motivate a reluctant horse by dangling a carrot in front of it and beating it on the rear with a stick.” 

“I’m allergic to carrots,” Bucky deadpans.

The colonel’s smile looks like the flash of a blade— “It’s a joint approach, Sergeant”— and three soldiers enter the room, dragging Steve, manacled and snarling, between them. The colonel waves a hand at them, expression unchanging, and they aim their fists, feet, pistol butts, and heavy nightsticks at Steve’s chained form until he’s coughing up blood. 

“Steve!” Bucky explodes up from the table, ferociously slamming his entire body weight against the restraints. “Get the fuck away from him! _Steve!”_

The guards toss the omega, red dripping from his mouth as he wheezes for breath, at the colonel’s feet and the colonel reaches down and places a hand in Steve’s hair, stroking lightly. Steve jerks his head away with a hiss and a guard beats him hard over the shoulders with a nightstick. “We have such a lovely carrot for you, Sergeant. All we ask is for your compliance.”

“No,” Bucky spits, horrified eyes never leaving Steve’s. “Never. You bastards.”

“See, Sergeant,” the colonel continues, unperturbed, “you’ve provided us with the perfect storm, if you will. If you decide to comply, you and your bonded will be reunited once again. If you continue to fight—“ he tightens his fist, yanking the omega’s face up so Bucky can see his grimace of pain and the crimson running down his chin— “we get to see how much electricity your bonded can take before he loses the ability to talk.”

“Buck,” Steve rasps, “ _tell ‘em to go to hell_.”

Bucky yanks desperately against the restraints again. “You won’t get away with this,” he snarls at the colonel. “You’re gonna fuckin’ pay.”

The colonel sighs as if let down by a puppy he’d thought house-trained. “Very well, Sergeant. We’ll start your training now, then,” and he kicks Steve down at the guards’ feet again. “I’ll ask for a second opinion then, Sergeant, after you’ve watched him scream.”

 

* * *

  

They put a gun and a hooded man on his knees in front of Bucky.

“Shoot,  _soldat_ ,” the colonel prompts, “and you can save him.”

“I won’t,” Bucky says.

 

* * *

 

"Steve, Stevie. 'M sorry."

"'S'okay, Buck. Doesn't ev'n hurt, promise."

"My fault."

"No. No. Their fault."

 

* * *

 

_Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus—_

 

* * *

 

They put a gun and a hooded man on his knees in front of Bucky.

“Shoot, _soldat_ ,” the colonel prompts, “and you can save him.”

“32557038,” Bucky says.

 

* * *

 

"Let him rest, please, please, let him rest, he's  _dying._ _"_

"Are you ready to comply?"

"I— _Steve!_ _"_

 

* * *

 

_—now and at the hour of our death: amen._

 

* * *

 

They put a gun and a hooded man on his knees in front of Bucky.

“Shoot,  _soldat_ ,” the colonel prompts, “and you can save him.”

“Ready to comply,” the soldier says.

 


	23. many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it: if a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be condemned

_**longing** _

 “What’m I gonna do when you leave, Buck?” Steve murmurs. “How’m I gonna close my eyes without seein’ your smile printed on the other side?”

“I’ll wake up every mornin’ sayin’ your name like I would the _shacharit_ ,” Bucky breathes back, butterfly kisses brushed over the wings of Steve’s collarbones, “thankin’ God for returnin’ my soul to my body, lettin’ me live another day with the memory of your mouth sweet on mine.”

“Hold me,” whispers Steve. “Don’t let go.”

 

 

_**rusted** _

As they dangle off their fire escape, everything shimmers in the rising summer heat, slightly bruised: this patina of, _I think I was made to want you,_ this look of, _I’ve loved you ever since you were born, and probably longer than that._

 

 

_**furnace**_

Bucky folds gently, prettily. Steve doesn’t bend, doesn’t break; he grows knotted and oaken.

Bucky’s built from fog and jagged glass. Steve is forged from fire and blood and iron. 

Bucky smells like lilacs and copper and crisp, fresh winter air. Steve’s scent spills summery into Bucky's mouth.

Bucky loves with his bones. Steve loves with his breath.

(Steve jokes that’s why he’s always having asthma attacks around Bucky. _There’s just too much love_ , he says, grinning, _it bubbles over. Gotta get it out somehow.)_

( _I’d prefer if you could just breathe without hackin' up a lung, like a normal person_ , Bucky gripes back, but he keeps Steve’s smile when he says that buried deep down in his chest, warming him like an ember, inside to out.)

 

  

_**daybreak** _

( _Until the shadows flee away, turn, my beloved, O, thou whom my soul loveth_ —)

“Don't wan' breakfast,” Steve huffs sleepily, face stuffed into the thin mattress. "Your cookin' is garbage."

“You’re complete shit at cleanin' anythin' except brushes,” Bucky lazily retorts from where he’s buried his face between the wings of Steve’s shoulder blades. "Don't give me shit about not bein' a domestic fuckin' goddess."

“Whatever,” Steve says. “Wanna spend some time makin' time?”

“Ooh, baby _doll_ ,” Bucky sighs happily, rolling Steve over with a smirk, “you’re readin' my damn mind.”

( _—O, rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away, for, lo, the winter is past and the rain is over and gone._ )

 

 

_**seventeen** _

“Gotta open you up, get you ready, come on, stay still for me.”

“Shit, Buck, want _you_ , been ready for _years_ —hurry up—”

“Well, if you weren’t so goddamn _high-maintenance_ —”

“C'mon, just get the fuck _inside me already_.”

“Steve, you can’t just fuckin’ _sit on it like th_ — oh, _oh_ — oh, Christ _Jesus_.”

“Ah. You were—oh— takin' too long. _Shit_ , Bucky, _move_."

"Hell, Rogers. You hurt?"

“What the fuck do you think I’m doin' here— havin' my asshole gently massaged and bathed in asses' milk? _Yes_ , it fuckin’ hurts, Christ. Now _do it again_.” 

 “Jesus, sweetheart— oh, _god_ , the way you _smell_. You're so fuckin' wet for me.”

 “Buck, stop talkin’ and do me harder, goddamn you—”

“—baby, _baby_ , yes, squeeze just like that— fuck me so good, you do, Stevie—”

“—oh, god, oh, _oh_ , come _on_.”

“I love you, _I love you_ , oh, hell, sweetheart, you’re beautiful.”

“C'mon, come _on_ , knot me."

“— _Christ_ —”

“Knot me the _fuck_ now, Buck, or I swear to God I’ll—”

“Shut _up_ , Steve, fuckin’—”

“— _oh. Oh_.”

“—that’s it, come for me, you smug son of a b—”

 

 

_**benign** _

“Happy birthday,” Bucky grins, handing Steve a dull red pomegranate. “Got you a gift.”

Steve protests even as he starts peeling open the firm flesh. “Buck, you shouldn’t— I know we don’t have too much extra right now, so you should spend what you’re earnin’ on yourself, give yourself a treat.”

“This is my treat, sweetheart,” protests Bucky, watching his bonded wedge his fingertips into the cracks of the fruit, prying apart the chunks of ruby-red nibs. “Gonna get to watch you lick your fingers all night long, now, see?”

“Buck!” Steve’s blushing now. He’s a full-body blusher, flushing crimson from his forehead to his navel. Bucky thinks it’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen.

“Wanna get my mouth on you. Suck some of that sweet off your tongue,” the alpha purrs. “Gonna gimme some sugar, baby doll?”

Steve narrows his eyes. “You’re _trouble_ , James Barnes.”

Bucky grins, dropping the alleycat act to give Steve grabby-hands and a pleading look. “Just wanna hold my best guy for a bit and enjoy a birthday treat. Last one together for a while, yeah?”

Steve goes very still, and Bucky internally flinches, realizing he might have completely shattered the omega’s light mood. But Steve shakes himself like a dog, drops himself into Bucky’s lap and starts kissing hotly at his jaw, and Bucky grins and tucks him close under his chin.

“Happy birthday to me,” Steve singsongs, and Bucky thinks he quite agrees.

 

 

_**nine** _

_Jamie_ , Evie calls you all nice-like when she wants to play. _Jamie_ , Esther calls you when Becca tumbles off the swing and skins her knees and Esther runs crying to you for help. _Jamie_ , Ma calls you from the foot of the stairs, _you’re in charge of the girls while we’re out_. When Becca, Evie, and Esther whine, Ma tells them that they’re just lucky she doesn’t have them on leashes, and gives them the same grin you give Steve when he’s being stupid. You think keeping Steve on a leash would be a _great_ idea.

_Yonatan ben Yocheved,_ Rebbe Mendel calls you as you step up to the _bimah_ and he places a slender silver _yad_ in your hand. You look out at the congregation— there’s Ma, holding Da’s hand; there’s Becca and Evie and Esther; there’s Steve, wearing a yarmulke and grinning like a fool— and then you drop the _yad_ onto the ancient parchment in front of you and begin to read: _bereshit_ : in the beginning there was Steve, and it was _good_.

_Sweetheart_ , Steve calls you after his lips finish their sweeps of your inner thighs, your temples, the curl of your instep— all the places you don't let the world in, the ones in which you store your softness. You think it’s okay if Stevie gets to see those, though. You know that Steve touches you as your ma does the _mezuzah_ on the doorframe each time she enters and exits: _I will hang Thy name upon the doorposts of this house, for You have blessed me with a home._

_James B. Barnes,_ the United States army calls you before you burn their letter in the bathtub and go hoist Steve against the wall until he chants your name—your _real_ name— and spasms gorgeously around your cock. Mutual sexual completion is good for identity crises, you conclude, and decide to make it part of your regular training routine.

_Sergeant_ , Peggy Carter calls you in her red dress. _Sergeant_ , she calls you when you pull all your tricks to keep Steve to yourself. _Sergeant_ , she calls you when she still goddamn wins.

_Soldat_ , the colonel calls you and you respond, _Ready to comply_. You're not supposed to have opinions but this name makes your skin itch; every time the ice swallows you you find it itches a bit less, so you decide you quite like the ice. You ignore the discomfort until one day they send you to train a room of girls to kill and, for four years, you are more like a person than a weapon. You're good enough at it that you wonder if you've been a person before. You don't think about whether you'll be a person again. You know the answer.

_Alpha,_ the captain calls you. You think the name sounds clumsy, like it got stretched out somewhere along the way and now the proportions don’t fit correctly. You wonder if the captain has a name that doesn’t quite fit either. Somehow, imagining he’s the wrong size feels familiar.

_Yasha_ , the little Widow calls you when you teach her to garrote a man. _Yasha_ , the little Widow calls you when you lick hot into her mouth years later and she bites at your jaw and drags her nails down your back. You question if either of you once knew how to love without blood involved.

_Asset_ , the American calls you. Your skin itches. He reminds you of a weasel. You don’t mention either of these things to the doctors because you are a weapon and weapons do not have itchy skin or compare their handlers to weasels. If you are not weapon-enough then they have to fix you and their bedside manners are shit. You’d rather just be put on ice again, anyway. It’s very high-maintenance, being _Asset_ , you think.

 

 

_**homecoming** _

DEAR STEVE STOP WAR IS TERRIBLE STOP IT IS VERY COLD HERE STOP

DEAR STEVE STOP WAR IS STILL SHIT STOP TODAY I LEARNED WHAT A MILLION PEOPLE LOOK LIKE AFTER THEY HAVE BEEN BURNED STOP

 

 

_**one** _

_Sh’ma yisrael adonai eloheinu, adonai echad—_

And those who go out weeping, carrying seed to sow, will return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with them.

So everything's okay, right?

Can we rest now, Ma? Can we rest?

  

 

_**freight car** _

(Steve falls.)


	24. a solidness that can't be attacked

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings: attempted sexual assault; coerced impregnation; implied miscarriage.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**1963-1965**

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The soldier returns with a Vietnamese president brutally extinguished and a mission complete. The upper echelons of HYDRA are delighted with the results.

“You’ve done well, _soldat,_ ” the colonel tells him. “Compliance will be rewarded.”

The soldier’s stony expression doesn’t change but his shoulders tense and he shifts his weight onto the balls of feet.

“He’s gotta be losing it,” one of the techs mutters quietly. “Alpha like that— bastard’s gotta have the world’s biggest case of blue balls. If I had an omega with an ass that tight and I couldn’t fuck it without say-so—”

The colonel glances at him with disdain as he turns sharply on his heel. “ _Soldat_ , follow me.” The soldier obeys silently, and, if the tech crumples when a vicious elbow knifes into his left kidney, no one mentions it to the general later.

The captain's dozing fitfully when the soldier makes his way into the cell. “Your compliance has won you this privilege. You may participate in the captain’s heat,” the colonel informs him matter-of-factly. “You will return to active duty in three days.” He exits, barring the door behind him.

The soldier walks carefully towards the drowsy captain, pausing when his eyes flutter open. The omega huffs quietly in discomfort, rolling his shoulders with something like dissatisfaction on his face. “I am malfunctioning.”

“You are not,” the soldier says quietly. “You are in heat. They have granted me permission to share it with you.”

“Because you are a good weapon,” the captain murmurs.

“Because compliance will be rewarded _,_ ” the soldier corrects, and stalks forward to wrap a gloved fist around the nape of the captain’s neck and yank his mouth to his. The captain groans and falls forward against his chest, sleek mass folding eagerly into his embrace.

They come together as sweetly as ever, sunlight and copper-lilac-frost hanging fragrant in the air.

 

* * *

 

The soldier’s next five missions go flawlessly. He’s sent back into the ice when someone shatters the still of a Texas afternoon with a shot first.

The captain kills a powerful man with a voice like steel in a ballroom in Manhattan and vanishes before anyone can char his mind to ash. When they come, he leaves bodies piled hip-high behind him.

(They put him on ice for a long time after that.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**1970-1973**

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They’re in training, now, completing hours of combat techniques and tactics study. The soldier _(weapons don’t have preferences, of course, but he)_ admits to himself that he likes the solid weight of a ranged weapon in his palm. The captain’s face remains stoic as ever, but he gravitates naturally towards strategy work. He keeps small, vicious throwing knives tucked into his clothes; the soldier can feel them when their chests press together as they spar.

When he shoves the captain to the mat and pins him with the force of his spread thighs, the soldier wonders why he can taste pomegranates.

 

* * *

 

There’s a handler who licks his lips when they wake the captain from ( _three goddamn years in)_ the ice. The soldier imagines making the handler scream, but then he’s hustled into the chair and everything gets grey and hazy for a while. There’s a book. There’s words. He—

 

 

(who)

 

 

 

(the)

 

 

 

 

(hell)

 

 

 

 

 

(is)

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Bucky)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

—fades back into existence when the captain hisses. It’s a sharp, savage sound that tugs at something in his chest, and he’s snarling before he can help it and lunging to his feet because the handler’s shoving the captain, pale and pained and fresh out of cryo, to his knees; he's gripping the captain by the hair—

(“ _You’re a pretty thing, aren’t you— bet you‘ve got a pretty little hole, too.”)_

—tugging at the zipper of his uniform pants and pushing the captain’s mouth onto his groin, and the soldier is going to _break the handler in half_ except the captain gets there first—growls, nearly alpha-deep— and _bites_ down hard.

When the handler wails, soldiers rush into the room and the colonel _(no, no, the colonel is gone and there’s a Soviet general with silvering temples and the flash of a blade in his smile, now)_ enters. He examines the hapless handler with raised eyebrows. “What did you expect from a weapon of HYDRA,” he asks, almost exasperated, “a sweet little omega just waiting to be bred by a big, strong alpha?”

The soldier chokes back a wave of fury at the words, forcing himself to stay rooted where he is (seven feet, four inches) from the blood-covered man in question. The captain stands and walks on legs still shaking from the ice to the soldier, collapsing with a sigh at his feet. The soldier doesn’t dare put a hand on his head, but he shifts his leg the smallest bit closer so the length of it is pressed as close to the captain as possible. He receives an answering surge of vicious satisfaction that makes him swallow, mouth suddenly dry.

“The captain is HYDRA,” the general sighs, “ and HYDRA is a perfect body. There is no room for weakness within HYDRA.”

“Hail HYDRA,” the handler bawls desperately. The general pulls out a pistol and shoots him neatly, equidistant, between the eyes.

“Take out the trash,” he says to a guard. “Continue your training,” he tells the soldier and the captain, turning on his heel to stride out of the room. “You are HYDRA’s fist and shield. You will bring order to the world.”

The soldier doesn’t explain that the only thing he _wants_ to do is tuck the captain under him and bury himself in the curve of the omega's neck. Instead, he sprawls back in the chair, letting his legs spread a bit too wide to be casual. He wants to see the captain’s eyes drift down past his waist. He wants the captain to see his strength and virility; to trust that he’ll keep him safe, HYDRA or not.

They are HYDRA’s, but the captain is his and he is the captain’s.

 

(So it goes.)

 

   

 

 

 

 

**1974**

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

“An alpha-omega bonded pair,” the scientist breathes in awe over the soldier’strembling form, pliant and loose-limbed in the chair, “both enhanced.”

“They’re perfect for Operation Echidna,” his coworker gushes, pleased. “We can’t pass up this opportunity for science.”

“For HYDRA,” the first scientist corrects. “Hail HYDRA.”

“Of course,” the second says. “Hail HYDRA.”

 

* * *

 

Operation Echidna involves the soldier fucking the captain hard through his heat under close and invasive monitoring. The soldier whispers comfort as quietly as he can, the captain hot-tempered and blood-warm from heat fever below him.

They prompt him to knot the captain six times and the captain still snarls under him, on edge. The soldier soothes him by rubbing his hands over his flanks and the planes of his torso. The captain settles down against the soldier as urged, grumbling against his collarbone.

The doctors are thrilled by the results. They allow the soldier to escort the captain from the lab to his cell as a reward.

 

* * *

 

The soldier emerges from the ice far sooner than expected. “Mission incomplete, _soldat_ ,” a doctor informs him impatiently. “We’re going to need a repeat performance.”

He blinks.

“He can’t answer you without prompting,” another doctor mutters, rolling her eyes. “You’ve got to give him orders. He’s like a fucking automaton.”

The soldier feels indignant before he remembers weapons do not feel.

 

* * *

 

They’ve wiped the captain since the last time he saw him, he realizes when they guide him into the lab, as he runs his fingers over the taut flesh of the captain’s abdomen and the captain watches him with hazy, drugged eyes. “You remember me?” the soldier murmurs.

The captain blinks once, dreamily, and presses a hand to his chest. “I know you.”

“I know you, too,” the soldier breathes before the captain reaches for him, and then the soldier focuses on summer (how does he  _know_ _)_  for the next good while.

 

* * *

 

“Why isn’t it taking?” the doctor complains. “This is the second time.”

“Maybe the soldier’s not packing that kind of gun,” the other suggests. “We can test it with another participant.”

“If the captain doesn’t kill them first for trying,” the first says dryly.

The second sighs, wry, “But what a way to go, huh?”

 

* * *

 

They let the soldier guide the captain again, and the captain pants and trembles.

“Why are they doing this to you,” the soldier asks raggedly.

The captain turns his head into the soldier’s shoulder and doesn’t answer. It doesn’t matter. The tinges of sweet milk and bitter blood coloring his scent give it away.

“I wanted it,” the soldier murmurs at his ear, “even though weapons don’t want. I wanted it more than anything.”

(The captain won’t look at the soldier until the techs press his head back against the chair with metal plates, and then he screams, eyes open.)

(The soldier thinks he might be screaming, eyes open, too.)

 

* * *

 

This time there’s syringes. They don’t let the soldier see the captain at all.

 

* * *

 

“Lukin’s calling Operation Echidna off,” the doctor moans. “Says the Red Room’s asked to borrow the soldier.”

“Hail HYDRA,” the second groans. “Rest in peace, research scenario of a lifetime.”

 

* * *

 

The captain goes back into the ice. The soldier is put into the chair and put into the chair and put into the chair and

 

(It feels like years.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**1975**

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Ice.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**1976**

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Ice.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**1977**

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There’s a little Widow with hair the color of rust who smells like sun-warmed stone, and he nicknames her _танцовщица_  because she twirls her blades like a ballerina’s ribbons (terrible habit, he thinks) between her fingers. He almost wants to let her do it, she makes it so gentle.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**1978**

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There’s a little Widow with hair the color of rust and she nearly slips a knife into his throat when he challenges her to show him what she knows. He almost wants to let her do it, she makes it so gentle.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**1979**

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There’s a little Widow with hair the color of rust and he nearly guts her when she fists a hand in his hair and tugs his mouth to her throat. He almost wants to let her do it, she makes it so gentle.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**1980**

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There’s a little Widow with hair the color of rust and he nearly sobs when his handlers order him to get a child upon her in her next heat—

(—when she sits wearing a pout with delicate fingers twisted in his hair; when it’s not the little Widow he thinks of and for the first time in years he _longs_  so badly it hurts; there’s something gouging into him when he looks and sees it’s _her_ and not—)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**1981**

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There’s a little Widow with hair the color of rust and he nearly sobs when the handlers change their priorities last-minute and lash him to the chair; when sleek leather and a single, cracking gunshot await him in the dusty Egyptian afternoon instead.


	25. i’ll tell you all the things i have in my head, millions, myriads— they won’t stir by day, only by night on the river

_I think if we were a story,_ _  
the beginning would be the middle_  
_because I don’t remember ever not loving him—_

 _—and the end, oh,_  
_the end of us_  
_would be the end of me too._  

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**1981**

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Ice.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**1982**

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Ice.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

**1983**

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(The Philippines.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**1984**

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(India.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

**1985**

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Colombia.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 **1986**  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Sweden.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

**1987**

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Afghanistan.)

(Burkina Faso.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**1988**

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Ice.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**1989**

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Poland.)

(Hungary.)

(Bulgaria.)

(Czechslovakia.)

(Romania.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**1990**

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Israel.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**1991**

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

A tall, golden-haired alpha with a crisp American accent shakes hands with the general.

 _HYDRA's loyal fist and shield,_ saysthe general. _H_ _ail HYDRA._

 _The king is dead_ _,_ saysthe American,  _long live the king._

 

* * *

 

The captain goes to and returns from India. As a reward, they let him scent the soldier before he goes back into the ice.

 

* * *

 

For some reason, the soldier completes a mission weeping. It’s the first and only time he begs for the chair. He screams as the electricity sears his body and his tears freeze on his cheeks when they put him back under.


	26. your slim gilt soul

There are far too many alpha handlers that look at the captain like a cut of meat they want to eat, the soldier knows. He also knows the captain can handle himself; he _also_ knows that, if it weren’t for cryo, the handlers would have been dead on the ground with his bullets in their heads five times over. He can’t protect the captain if he's in the ice, though, so he settles for making sure the overly-interested handlers return from their missions gifted with career-ending injuries.

(He wonders once if he did this before the ice: getting rid of alphas that want to hurt the captain. It feels familiar, like the grip of his rifle or the warmth of the captain’s mouth.)

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**1992**

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Algeria.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**1993**

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Ice.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**1994**

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Rwanda.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**1995**

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Ice.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**1996**

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Ice.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**1997**

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Ice.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**1998**

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Ice.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**1999**

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Niger.)

(Ecuador.)

(Paraguay.)

(Samoa.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 _Oh, sweetheart,_ the soldier murmurs into the captain's ear, powerful hips twisting to force his cock harder against the omega's prostate, _sugar, oh—_

 _Alpha,_ hisses the captain, and he keeps growling as the soldier grinds against him, _please_ _, I can’t —_

 _You can,_ the soldier purrs, _one more, for me— one more, come on, doll._

 _Fuck,_ thecaptain whispers, then shouts as the soldier bites down into his shoulder, launching him into a fluttering, fucked-out orgasm, _oh, shit, I—oh, god—_

The soldier huffs in pleasure as his knot plumps and ties them together, laving his tongue roughly over the captain's scratched-up back as the omega sprawls dazedly under him. _Told you._

 _Jerk,_ the captain sighs lazily, pliant and slick with sweat in the soldier's arms.

 _Mm, no, that’s you,_ the soldier murmurs, and nuzzles tenderly at the bondmark on his throat. _My best guy._

(They put him in the chair for nearly four times longer than normal after that. When he sees the captain again, he feels like he's falling.)

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**2000**

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Ice.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**2001**

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(West Bank.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**2002**

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Serbia.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**2003**

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Ice.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**2004**

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Venezuela.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**2005**

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Ice.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**2006**

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(London.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**2007**

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Pakistan.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**2008**

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Ice.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**2009**

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Ice.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

In snowy Austria, Bucky screws Steve and Steve pushes down into Carter and Carter fucks herself up onto Steve so beautifully Bucky swears he sees goddamn stars through the bond.

 _He's mine_ , he warns the other alpha as she twists her hips and drags a low, broken sound from Steve’s already bitten-red lips, _don’t even think for a moment you can take him from me._

Carter gives him a vicious, blazing grin. _Not unless he asks for it._

(They end up ripping at each other all night, nipping at each other’s lips, bruises pooling in the dip of their collarbones and the hollows of their hips. _Mine, mine, mine;_ they fuck, fight over Steve like animals.)

 _You reek,_ Carter hisses, clawing savagely into Bucky’s shoulder blades as he tugs her exposed throat taut with a hand fisted at her nape, purposefully triggering her instincts, _you smell like_ war _—_

 _Haven’t you heard, doll?_ He bites deeply into the soft flesh of her breast and laughs when she snarls, alpha-deep. _I’ve got war in my bones_.

The next day, Carter wears violet in the shape of Bucky’s mouth under the collar of her shirt and the Commandos receive orders that they’re heading into the Alps to catch a train.

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**2010**

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(United Arab Emirates.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**2011**

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Ice.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**2012**

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Ice.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**2013**

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Ice.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**2014**

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Ready to comply,” rasps the soldier. “Ready to comply,” the captain echoes.

“Mission objective: eliminate target,” the American says, and smiles warmly: “Nicholas J. Fury.”

 

* * *

 

One would think, given the soldier's history with alphas trying to tell the captain what to do, Alexander Pierce would have reconsidered the mission. As it is, ninety-seven thousand tons of helicarrier crash into the Potomac. The soldier and the captain watch from the bank as it falls.


	27. the spirit of a certain grave mood made beautiful for us

They make it, for a while.

The soldier hacks his way through HYDRA’s finances and comes out with enough cash to buy a small island, which he uses to replace his and the captain’s Kevlar with dark, nondescript clothes, keep them moving through a series of apartments, and obtain fake documents in sixteen countries. The leftover funds go into duffels stuffed half-cash, half-weapons, which the soldier then stores in safehouses across three continents. After an unpleasant week of regurgitation after consumption of solid foods, the soldier invests in foodstuffs commonly associated with famine victims and stocks the safehouses with those too.

The captain is not focused on safehouses or reintroducing solid food to his system. Instead, the captain is set on— as he explains— eliminating HYDRA with _extreme_ prejudice. He hands the soldier his rifle and straps sheaths to the soldier’s legs, hips, ribs, and forearms. The captain keeps his own gun tucked at the small of his back, slips blades into his own sleeves, and sews his ever-present throwing knives in the lining of his coat.

The soldier accedes, and makes the captain put on a warmer jacket and eat some famine peanut butter before they go.

 

* * *

 

They start in Russia, where HYDRA made them, leaving blooming fire and charred dirt—St. Petersburg, Archangelsk, Moscow, Volgograd— behind them.

Between targets, they alternate between sleeping, flicking through any documents they dug up at the last base, experimenting with famine peanut butter recipes (or, in the captain’s case, enthusiastically trying to avoid the soldier’s famine peanut butter recipes), and desperately fucking on the bed, table, floor, bathroom counter, and other available surfaces.

Sex, they find, works just as well as excessive violence as a stress release. The captain nips at the soldier’s shoulders while the soldier slides his palms up and between the captain’s legs. They leave bloodstains on the floor and bruises on each other’s hips and come smeared over their abdomens, and they didn’t know it could be so, _so_ good, but it is.

(One night in a small apartment outside of Moscow, the soldier wakes with the velvety taste of red wine on his tongue and makes love to the captain until the sun rises, sucking bruises into the soft skin at the base of his throat. In the morning, when the captain gets up to check the perimeter, the soldier sprawls over their bed and watches how beautifully the omega’s back muscles flex when he moves.)

(“Is there trouble?” the captain asks, stiffening when he notices the soldier’s scrutiny.)

(The soldier shakes his head. “Just looking at you, sugar.” The pet name rolls smoothly off his tongue like he’s said it a thousand times before.)

(The captain tips his head curiously, like a bird. “Sugar?”)

(Unexpectedly, the soldier feels warmth rising in his cheeks. “I don’t know why I said that.”)

(“Sugar,” the captain says again, testing it out in his mouth, and gives him a little smile. “You think I’m sweet.”)

(“I think you’re full of shit,” the soldier tells him, but pulls him down to kiss him anyway.)

 

* * *

 

They move into eastern Europe. The soldier gets to use his grenade launcher in Belarus and counts the experience as a post-HYDRA highlight up there with unmonitored fucking, hot baths, and no feeding tubes.

 

* * *

 

“I think I was an artist,” the captain tells the soldier in Kiev, poking his damp golden head out from the shower to blink at the soldier as he trims his hair in the sink. “At least, I know what _chiaroscuro_ looks like. And I have very strong opinions on Salvador Dalí. And I also have a constant urge to draw you naked in every medium I can.”

The soldier pauses. “Who’s Salvador Dalí?”

The captain shrugs helplessly at him.

(A quick Google search provides a survey of Dalí’s pre- and post-war works. The captain scowls. “Anyone who thinks Dalí’s not a genius is a fuckin’ madman.”)

(“Okay,” the soldier murmurs, stroking a possessive hand over the captain’s flanks.)

(The captain pouts. “I’m surrounded by plebeians.”)

(“Mm, baby _doll_ ,” the soldier purrs, “say it again,” and he rolls the captain over into the pillows, and then they don’t talk for the next while.)

 

* * *

 

They blow the hell out of a base in Sofia and fuck there in the rubble, dust landing in the soldier’s hair. This time the captain holds the soldier down and makes him beg for it. The soldier labels the day a rousing success.

 

* * *

 

Hungary makes the captain sneeze. They hit a base in Budapest and take off for Prague as soon as they can.

The soldier introduces white rice and broth into their diet. The captain is thrilled by the potential of meals that are not famine peanut butter and kisses the soldier until he's gasping and hard. 

 

* * *

 

They pass a market in Sofia that’s offering ducklings to be pet. One of the tiny feathered lumps falls asleep in the captain’s palm.

“I want a duckling,” he whispers to the soldier, “after we’re done.”

(The soldier is not sure whether one can die from a desire to wrap one’s omega in warm soft fabric and never let them feel anything cold ever again, but he thinks, if one can, it’s the way he wants to go.)

 

* * *

 

“Drink this,” the soldier says, handing the captain a thermos of broth.

The captain crinkles his nose. “I‘d kill for a hot dog,” he says, then looks shocked. He blinks big eyes at the soldier. “I don’t know what a hot dog is.”

“Maybe you did, once,”murmurs the soldier. “The files said we were Americans.”

The captain sighs, looking put-upon. “Fucking HYDRA.”

“Fucking HYDRA,” the soldier agrees, and hands the captain his American documents. “I could go for a hot dog, too.”

The captain grins viciously.

 

 


	28. and my heart, my too-sensitive heart said to my soul

They do recon work in every city they pass through— Baltimore, Philadelphia, Boston. The captain eats a cheese steak against the soldier's advice and spends an afternoon throwing up while the soldier rolls his eyes and continues browsing the leaked SHIELD files. 

By unspoken agreement, they avoid New York City.

 

* * *

 

They arrive in Washington, D.C., and the soldier blinks up a banner advertising a new exhibit at the Smithsonian: _Captain America Remembered, Seventy Years Later._

“Is that me?” the captain asks quietly. He sounds younger than the soldier can remember. He sounds scared _._ "What did they _do_ to me?"

The soldier swallows.

 

* * *

 

They wreck a base in the vault of a bank with more prejudice than usual.


	29. deep down in the depths of sight

There’s a man in their safehouse when they get back. He’s leaning against the kitchen counter, wearing red and gold metal armor and eating an apple. He turns his head and raises his eyebrows at them dryly. “Nice place you got. Off the map, advanced perimeter traps, flawless sight-lines— you really hit the 'impenetrable fortress' jackpot.”

(The soldier makes sure he’s angled in front of the captain, tensed to receive any threat first. Despite the casual pose, he knows Stark’s tech is capable of agile, brutal violence. The gun he holds on Stark doesn’t waver as he draws a knife in the other hand. He knows the captain has his fingers on his blades too.)

“Nice tin can you got,” the captain returns flatly. “Why are you here?”

Stark arches his eyebrows, impressed. “Whoa, kitten's got claws. Can’t a friendly citizen just be in the area and come say hi?”

“Don’t call him that,” the soldier grits, alpha-deep. “Spit it out or get the fuck out.”

Stark’s obviously on scent suppressants, but the way his eyes widen in response to the soldier’s timbre suggests an omega differentiation. “I thought I’d introduce myself before the other neighbors did,” he says, “Tony Stark,” and he offers a hand to the soldier, “genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist. Merchant of Death, I am Iron Man, yadda yadda.”

The soldier just stares at him, unimpressed.

“Jeez, tough crowd,” Stark mutters. “Anyway. You two have been drawing a lot of attention from the world intelligence network recently. Nice revenge tour, by the way,” he adds, “I really liked the way you blew up that base in Slovakia with C-4. Great aesthetic, big fan. Not the point. You have a lot of people working hard to bring you in. Figured I’d come test the waters, vouch for you if you seemed, y’know, dehydrated. Get it?”

The soldier briefly wishes he didn’t have the free will to consider cold-blooded murder immoral. The captain seems to agree, voice like flint. “Pass.”

Stark drops the pleasant, rambling tone, fixing them instead with a piercing dark gaze. “Look, I’m gonna be a hell of a lot nicer than most of the other agents they want to send your way. Work with me here. SHIELD’s trying to keep you safe.”

The soldier huffs out an involuntary laugh. “SHIELD wants the Winter Soldiers, Stark. Safety’s not exactly at the forefront of their minds. _Pass_ ,” he repeats, voice dropping low, dangerous. “Now leave.”

Stark sighs, getting to his feet. “I really didn’t wanna do it this way—“ and before he finishes the sentence, the soldier’s firing his gun and shoving the captain back out the door as a redheaded operative drops into the apartment. She dodges, spins, and snaps a phrase in Russian that crackles through the soldier’s veins like lightning and drops him like a puppet with its strings cut. Before everything goes dark, he hears the captain snarling with fury.


	30. this slow darkness creeping

The soldier wakes up to white and _no captain where is the captain where is he you son of a bitch you_

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The soldier wakes up to white and _Sergeant Barnes? Sergeant Barnes you’re safe you’re with SHIELD you_

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The soldier wakes up to white and _careful he’s dangerous he nearly killed the last doctor to touch him he oh holy shit he’s awake get the director get the_

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The soldier wakes up to white and _HYDRA HYDRA oh fuck god no please no no no nonononono_

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The soldier wakes up to white and _the_ _little widow dances and kills a man and why is she here now how is she here but that’s not real that’s not_

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The soldier wakes up to white and hospital monitors and thick plastic restraints on his wrists, waist, and ankles. He sucks in a quick breath, tamping down the panic rising bitter in his throat, and begins to test the give instead. He’s almost worked his right hand free when a door slides open and a mild-looking man walks in. The soldier snarls.

The man says, “I’m sorry for the rude introduction, Sergeant Barnes," gesturing to the restraints, “but we didn’t want you to cause yourself any harm while recovering from the surgery.”

“What surgery,” the soldier hisses, and then he looks down and _oh jesus where’s my arm they took my fucking arm_ _jesus fuck i_

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The soldier wakes up to white and hospital monitors and thick plastic restraints on his wrists, waist, and ankles. He sucks in a quick breath, tamping down the panic rising bitter in his throat, and begins to test the give instead. He’s almost worked a wrist free when a door slides open and a mild-looking man walks in. The soldier snarls.

The man says, “Hello again, Sergeant Barnes." His scent is suppressed, like Stark’s. The soldier briefly wonders if suppressants are a twenty-first-century thing or just an intelligence-agency asshole thing.

“Where the hell am I,” the soldier growls, yanking one-armed at the restraints. _Where the hell is the captain?_ He grabs desperately at the bond but it feels slippery, like the captain is reaching back but their fingers can’t quite touch. He feels cold.

The man smiles pleasantly. “You are at a SHIELD facility designed to fully accommodate your recovery. My name is Agent Coulson. I am the director of SHIELD. How do you feel?”

The soldier nearly spits like a cat. “Peachy.” _What do you want what do you want what do you want where is the captain?_ He refuses to show his swelling anxiety to this man.

 _"_ Do you know who you are, Sergeant Barnes?” Coulson asks.

“The Winter Soldier,” the soldier grits. “SHIELD’s prisoner.”

Coulson looks shocked. The soldier wants to tear his throat out. “Not SHIELD’s prisoner, no. We want to help, sergeant.”

The soldier’s not an idiot. He knows how this goes. If Coulson’s going to play the innocence card, the soldier can more than match him at it. “Sorry,” he grunts, “not interested.”

“Not even if we have your omega?” Coulson says mildly.

Stomach plummeting, the soldier stares at the ceiling and keeps his mouth shut. _So this is how the game’s going to go._

“I hope we can talk further when you feel better,” sighs Coulson, getting up to go, “sergeant.”

The door hisses behind him and the soldier clenches his eyes and lets his eyes drift closed, memories of a small, dark cell and the captain’s agony flickering against the backs of his eyelids.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Good morning, sergeant.” It’s Coulson again, as pleasant as the visit before. “Did you rest?”

The soldier doesn’t answer, just shoots him a scathing look.

“Yes, I suppose this set-up isn’t too comfortable,” Coulson sighs. “I’m sure we could work something out about it. Your omega has been asking about you as well,” he adds, almost as an afterthought. “He’s been very distressed.”

The soldier wants to rip his throat out. Instead, he lets his eyes slide shut again until Coulson leaves, then he lies there, feeling himself shake. The words _ready to comply_ echo in his ears until he thinks he’ll scream.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Good morning, sergeant.”

“Get fucked.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Good morning, sergeant.”

The soldier hates him.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Good morning, sergeant.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Good morning, sergeant.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Good morning, sergeant.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Do you know what a panic heat is?” Coulson asks calmly after they exchange their normal greetings: apleasant _g_ _ood morning, sergeant_ from Coulson; a gritted curse from the soldier. “The science is really still out on what justifies it: hormones kicking into overdrive to ensure procreation? To draw in a protecting alpha while the omega may be occupied recovering from a traumatic experience? To give a single, vulnerable omega the opportunity to attract a new partner? It seems to be a survival mechanism, experts have concluded so far, but there’s always more knowledge to be gleaned,” he continues. “It’s much more important to concentrate on the reality of it, anyway.”

The soldier squeezes his eyes shut. _No. Jesus, no. Please don’t make me. Please._  

“Your omega’s entering a panic heat,” Coulson informs him. “You have the choice to let him suffer it on his own. You also have the choice, sergeant, to see him and support him with all the resources SHIELD has on hand. All we ask is that you dialogue with us.” 

“Fuck you,” the soldier whispers, “why are you doing this?”

Coulson spreads his hands harmlessly. “You are, one could say, an invaluable asset to the intelligence community. We’d just like to make sure you and your omega are given the opportunities individuals of your particular skillsets deserve. Only on a case-by-case basis, of course. We’d endorse you in any of your other endeavors to readjust to society, as you like.” _Work for SHIELD_ , he’s saying, _and we’ll leave you and the captain in peace._  

It’s not like the soldier has a choice. “You win,” he says roughly. "I'll play."

Coulson smiles warmly. “I thought you’d see it our way eventually.”


	31. i would not paint love

They put a gun in the soldier’s right hand and the outline of a man in front of him and say shoot. He does.

(They have him repeat it a hundred times— running, spinning, jumping, blindfolded. He hits the target dead-center.)

They put a gun in the soldier's right hand and a practice range in front of him and say shoot. He does.

(They have him repeat it fifty times— Sig Sauer, Skorpion, Glock-17, precision rifle, Beretta, Colt pistol. He hits the target dead-center.)

They put a gun in the soldier's right hand and a man blindfolded in front of him and say shoot. He does.

(They have him repeat it once. He hits the target dead-center.)

 

* * *

 

"Let me see him," he says. "I did what you asked."

"Of course, sergeant."

_Compliance will be rewarded._


	32. the only language i know is his body and all its flinching notes

Slipping into the white room, the soldier sees the captain crouched coiled and ready to pounce in the corner despite the tremors wracking his muscled form. Copper-honey-sunlight permeates  _everything,_ velvet-rich and thick as molasses in the air. The captain moans, body slumping loose and open against the wall as the soldier rushes forward and tugs him into his arms. _"Fuck."_

The soldier keeps him tucked into the protective hunch of his shoulders as they settle back into the corner, the press of sharp angles this time padded by the soldier's thick frame. "I'm sorry I made you wait," he murmurs into the wing of a clavicle, "but I'm here now, I got you."

"It hurts," the captain growls brokenly. He groans quietly in heat-pain and pushes his face into the curve of the soldier's neck, trembling as he scents him. The blood-hot space between his legs drips with slick. "Alpha, it  _hurts—_ "

"I got you," the soldier says again, rolling the captain belly-down to the floor as he laps and worries at the omega’s bondmark. "Stay still— be sweet for me like I know you can, I'll make you feel good," he rumbles, fingers stroking against the captain's wet, furled hole to relieve some of the pressure.

"Please, just touch me,"his bonded pleads with a whine that lights the soldier's entire body on fire, "please, it _hurts_ —"

"Shh _,_ yes," and he trails open-mouthed kisses up the length of the captain's throat until he keens and pushes his hips hard back into the soldier's own, "yes, _yes_. Anything."

 

* * *

 

 

(The Commandos are curled up around their campfire like puppies when Bucky tugs a knife out of his pack and starts working busily away, carving at its sheath.)

(Steve nudges at his shoulder and raises an eyebrow when he sees the Hebrew characters taking form.)

("Normally, when Jews die, we recite a prayer," Bucky murmurs in response, eyes fixed on the leather, " _b_ _aruch dayan ha'emet._ 'Bless the True Judge.' It's a way of sayin' that, when people pass away, the good and the bad they did can pass with them, that their soul is in God's hands, now.")

(Steve glances up at him. "That's not how your ma did it. I remember when we sat _shiva_  for your grandmother.")

("There's another prayer for the dead," Bucky murmurs, "but not one most Jews say often: _Hashem yikkom damam._ You save it for when someone's killed for bein' a Jew," he says, and grins, crimson lips spreading wide, vicious. "You don’t pray for rest, then. You're askin' God to avenge their blood.”)

("Huh," says Steve. Then, "When you've done yours, wanna do the straps of my shield?")

("Sweetheart," Bucky purrs, "you've got  _no idea._ ")

 

* * *

 

After they make love furiously, biting into each other’s mouths as if with only seconds to spare while the captain strokes the soldier off hard and the soldier brutally reciprocates, they lie clutching each other close. “You gotta run,” the captain hisses against the side of the soldier's throat. “Don't trust them. You gotta get out without me."

 

( _then it sounds like we've got a train to catch)_

 

The soldier snaps at him, brushing the words off his lips with tiny kisses. “ _Where you go, I will go_ ,” he bites out, rote from memory he doesn't have, " _where you stay, I will stay_. End of the line."

 

( _yours, yours, yours)_

 

“End of the line,” mutters the captain, lips framing a memory.  _"O_ _h_ ," he breathes."They kept me to make you stay, didn't they?"

 

_(I won't, I won't ever again, I swear)_

 

“Yeah,” the soldier murmurs, resting his forehead against the captain's, lashes brushing his bonded's in a butterfly kiss. "Something like that. It doesn't matter. I'm not going anywhere without you."

 

_(growin' right on you, sweetheart)  
_

 

"I'd rather die than be the reason you stay in hell," whispers the captain.

( _we're gonna be eternal)_

 

“Yeah, sugar. I know.”


	33. but i gave helplessly unto you, like a wave would have unto the shore

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: nonconsensual sedation.

The soldier wakes up to what he thinks in a past life he might have called (“ _Jamie!_ Evie won’t let me play with her!” “ _Don’t_ get me involved in your stupid girl stuff, Becca.” “ _Ma!_ Bucky’s being a _putz!”_ “Watch your language and get the hell out of my kitchen,  _Rivka_!” “ _But Ma!”_ ) an _ungodly ruckus._

“What the hell is this?” Stark, the soldier notes with an amused huff against the captain's neck, is barking at the SHIELD director in the observation space in front of the soldier’s cell. “You’re _fucking kidding me,_ Coulson! We’re supposed to be the goddamn _good guys!”_

“They’re invaluable assets in ensuring our nation’s security,” Coulson retorts coolly, “and we’ve been in dialogue the entire time. Sergeant Barnes gave his full consent.”

(The captain is quietly awake besides the soldier, body deceptively lax. The soldier’s seen him explode out of a reclining pose to tear out a man’s throat before. The memory sends a pulse of heat coiling in the pit of his stomach and he shifts his hips, rolling his groin gently against the curve of the captain’s ass. The captain shoots him an aggrieved glance: _really?)_

(The soldier shrugs. He learned years—

(and years)

(and years)

(and years)

—ago never to pass up a chance to press close to the captain’s warm, lithe form.)

“You’re having him _executing political prisoners,”_ Stark shouts, “and keeping him from his mate while under the duress of a _panic heat_. _Not_ a great fucking look, _Director!”_ He snarls almost alpha-deep when Coulson raises his hands soothingly. “Save the shit for Barton when he asks why his boss is keeping two American fucking POWs locked in the basement.”

(The captain rolls his eyes. “Is he surprised the agency sheltering the American branch of HYDRA isn’t performing with perfect moral standards?” he snarks. The soldier huffs and nips at his ear, grinding his hips again. The captain squeaks and swats at him this time.)

“You’re out of line, Mr. Stark,” Coulson says calmly.

“You’re out of your mind,” Stark hisses back. “Get them out of that fucking cell and into a goddamn inpatient program. Or a hospital, or— Jesus Christ, Coulson, you didn't even let him keep his own _arm_?”

“It’s a potential weapon.”

“As someone who’s actually gotten up close and personal with nonconsensual body mods, I’m calling you full of shit. You want him dependent.”

“We want him loyal.”

“You want him _tamed_ ,” Stark spits. “Look, you have twenty-four hours to get them some goddamn decent treatment or I drop the media, the world’s foremost human rights lawyers, and a pair of assassins with _major_ compunctions surrounding messing with someone’s mind all on _your_ ass. Take it or fucking leave it, Phil.”

(When Stark spins on his heel to leave, the soldier shoots him a smirk and a salute. “Game, set, Stark.”)

Stark looks at him like he’s not sure whether to laugh or scream. The soldier thinks it’s an accurate assessment of the situation and settles down against the captain, still darkly entertained.

"You seem to have an admirer, Sergeant," the director murmurs as the doors shut behind Stark. "We'll be in touch."

The soldier ignores him. The captain bites gently at his collarbone, pushing for his attention, and the soldier turns his focus back to the priority at hand.

 

* * *

 

They send sedative gas into the cell when they move them; the captain kills seven guards before he goes under. As the soldier's eyes flutter shut, he feels the captain's black rage pulsing hot in his chest. He imagines with glee that the captain's reaction upon waking is going to be  _magnificent._

(It is.)

 

* * *

 

The next time he wakes up, he's resting on a clean medical cot in a white room, walled with clean concrete on three sides and thick glass on the other. The captain's curled on his side under the soldier's arm, breathing easy and drugged-slow. The soldier snarls at any lab coats that come near the glass, low growl so vicious they scamper away like rats. He's still got it, he thinks distantly as they put him back under.

 

* * *

 

When the soldier surfaces, the captain has woken and moved so his back rests tall against the white wall, the soldier slumped against his broad chest. He noses at the side of the soldier's head; _I've got your six_ _,_ he doesn't need to say. The soldier purrs briefly before straightening.

Stark’s back, pacing in front of their room in the watchful company of a tall, graceful redhead who can only be his alpha. She traces his quick steps with a level blue gaze. The soldier briefly thinks she’d make a great handler. The captain watched them both with wide, wary eyes.

“The files say you killed my parents,” Stark bursts out. “Did you know?”

The captain stiffens, icy confusion shooting through the bond. The soldier just stares at the man, slate eyes cold despite the reactionary clench of his palm against the captain’s thigh.

“Tony,” the redheaded alpha sighs, laying a slim hand on his shoulder. He jerks it off, gaze hot.

“Pep, I—“ he bites off his sentence with a frustrated bark, “I’m not _mad_. I'm— Jesus, no. I— you know—I’ve _been_  tortured,” he says sharply, gesticulating with large sweeps of his hands, and the soldier blinks. “I’m self-aware enough to know I probably have PTSD, and I just— I know _exactly_ what it takes to make someone break the way that— I’m not trying to _punish_  them. They're safe, here.” He stares at the two of them, too-old agony carved in the lines of his too-young face. “Look. I know you don’t really remember much, or anything. I just thought that we should— that you should know. Put us on the same page. That’s all.”

There’s a beat of silence where the soldier feels the thud of the captain’s heartbeat echoing under his own breastbone. Then:

“I— Howard?” the captain whispers softly, and the soldier feels the omega's body begin to shudder.

“Shit,” he whispers, twisting backwards to take the captain in his arms but, before he can complete the action, the captain squeezes his eyes shut and _screams_.

(The bond fractures into red-hot agony.)

(The soldier can't help himself: he falls.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

_"Bucky!"_

 


	34. to close every place you’ve ever been with a kiss, leaving nothing but inner skies

The soldier does _not_  like having a name, but the soldier even _less_  likes the captain crying out with pain cracking, ragged, in his voice.

He settles for returning the favor. “You’re still a dumb shit pickin’ fights with the kids who aim for your blind side, you know that?”

“I love you,” says Steve. “I’m sorry.”

“Fuckin’ eternal,” Bucky tells him.


End file.
